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Why I'm No Longer a Park Ranger
Written by cheesestubble. Hi everyone, this story comes from one of my friends who used to be ranger at the National Park I work at, and not from my personal experience. I’ve asked him to tell me his scariest experience at the job, and it just so happened to be his last. For immersion’s sake, I’ll tell it from the first person view. My normal shifts were during the day, 9-5 like most people, but on that day, we were short handed on the night shift staff, because the last person who worked during those hours had just quit. We had lately had a whole lot of people quitting the night shift. So that meant I had to cover. Weirdly enough, I had never had to work the graveyard shift before then, and I was actually excited for it. I had brought some coffee and five hour energy with me because the hours ran 10-5, and there was no way I’d make it that far naturally. I got to my tower right before 10, when it was already pitch black, and the cold July night had fully set in. The tower was fairly tall, with several flights of stairs leading up to the top. The whole thing was mostly surrounded by thick forest, except for the trail I came in from, and a murky pond that was just to the right of one of the tower’s legs. The pond itself was covered in those little frog pads and had algae floating around over the surface, it was actually quite big for a natural lagoon. I climbed up, and all I could hear was the nonstop sounds of crickets, frogs, and the occasional owl. When I hit the top, I fumbled with my keys until I finally found the right one, and walked right on in. The one room was small and square shaped, three of the walls were mostly glass, and the other one was opaque and had the door I just came in. The roof went up like a pyramid for a short length until it peaked, and it was all made of wood. To my left was a nicely made bed and a night stand with a lamp and a flashlight on top, not like I’d be using the bed though. On the wall next to that was my CB Radio and communications stand, which every one of those towers had. Next to that sat my refrigerator and microwave, which was part of a small kitchen that extended to the other wall as well. Inside the kitchen on the right wall were several cabinets, some small ones that held snacks and some canned foods, and another set of giant cabinets that I couldn’t open, which likely had vacuums and other cleaning supplies that were above my pay grade. Roomy. I went over to the communications stand and did my standard check to make sure everything was properly working. I called into the ranger station’s channel and said “Well Donny it looks like it’s just you and me tonight.” Donny didn’t say anything back, so I figured he was just taking a shit. I went and grabbed the flashlight on the stand and reached into one of it’s drawers, pulling out a set of binoculars from it. I went back out on to the balcony and checked to make sure no fire hazards or any other kind of dangerous things were over there. Once I checked that box of off my to-do list, I headed back inside and pulled out the chair from the communications stand and put it by one of the glass walls, and grabbed a granola bar from one of the kitchen cabinets to munch on. I put the binoculars up to my eyes and looked over the surrounding forest. It didn’t seem like any animals were up and about, and no birds were in the sky either. I skimmed over a couple of clearings to make sure that no teenagers were off camping illegally. Then I went and peaked over at a far ridge, where I saw a snowman standing alone in a gap of the trees. Hold the fuck up. It was July. I peaked again to see it wasn’t a snowman, but some kid in a shitty ghost costume. It looked like the ones from Charlie Brown, with the big black holes for eyes that looked more like they were colored black than actual holes. The kid was still, and staring right into my direction, unmoving. I couldn’t see the kid’s parents anywhere, and by now it was rolling up on 11, so that meant something was up. I broke contact on the kid and walked to the radio, calling in to the station. “Donny, you off the shitter yet?” “Barely made it out, but I’m here” I chuckled, Donny was always good for a laugh. “There’s some kid with a blanket walking around the south-east sector, and they look alone.” “A blanket? What the hell are you talking about?” “It’s a ghost costume, it’s got the black holes for eyes and stuff.” “You mean like the Charlie Brown cost-“ “Can you check it out?” “Yeah I’ll go out and see what’s up, I’ll call in on the walkie talkie to tell ya what I see.” “Roger that.” I turned off the radio and crossed over to the nightstand drawer to grab the walkie talkie. Once I had it I sat back down in the chair and put the binoculars to my eyes, zooming in to where the kid was. The ridge was empty, with no kid in sight, which I knew would make this a thousand times harder. I pulled up the antennae on the walkie talkie and dialed to the right channel. “Donny you hear me?” “Yep, loud and clear, I’m getting close to the sector, I’m heading up to a ridge for a vantage point.” “Perfect, that’s where I saw the kid, but they’ve moved on since then.” “Well I’ll just check around to see if I can find anything.” I watched as Donny came over the ridge, waving his flashlight around the dark, until he looked towards the tower and shrugged. “Nothing over here.” “Damn, hopefully he turns up again, until then I’ll just notify the police and check with any missing reports. “Alright I’ll go back to-“ Donny’s voice cut out and I saw his flashlight turn off in the distance. The small lit up spot where he stood was swallowed in darkness. “Donny? You there? Donny!” I heard no response, and I rushed outside the door, and around the corner to where I saw him, yelling his name, only to hear my voice echo into the woods. And that’s when it hit me. There wasn’t a single other sound in that entire forest. The crickets and frogs had stopped chirping, the wind didn’t rustle through the leaves. Everything was completely stand still. I could hear my heartbeat throbbing in my ears, and nothing else. I moved my flashlight around the woods for some futile attempt of finding him. I got into that state of mind where I got so scared my throat closed up, and if I moved I felt like something very bad was gonna happen. I had to do something now. I turned around and as I did, I glanced at the stairs below me. At the bottom stood a skinny, horrifically angled woman. She was tall, dripping with water, with black hair and dark, murky blue skin that stretched across her bent and broken bones. Her grey dress was shredded, and her black shoes were muddy and wet. And her face. Her eyes were milky white, and her mouth hung wide open like a snake, like her jaw had been grossly broken. She let out a blood curdling and ear piercing scream of agony and began to shuffle up the stairs so fucking fast that I snapped out of my fear lock, and I ran the fuck back inside, slamming and locking the door behind me. There was no way she could run that fast, even if all of her bones weren’t broken into wrong directions. I ran back to the kitchen and grabbed the biggest knife I could find, and then I pulled out the walkie talkie, screaming into it. “IS ANYONE THERE? DONNY WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU? SOMEONE ANSWER ME GODDAMNIT!” Then I heard the creaking of a door, I slowly turned, and I froze when I saw what was there. The door was still there, locked and shut, and had been completely undisturbed. What scared me was the once locked giant cabinet that now stood open, with a kid dressed like a Charlie Brown ghost standing just in front of it. I stood there, unmoving until I heard the little shit giggle. I recognized that giggle. No fucking way. I pulled off the sheet to see one of Donny’s kids, Marvin, sporting a smirk and a walkie talkie. “Dad! Joey! I got him!” “Hah! Pissed his pants just like I said he would right?” He and his other son laughed from the other end of the walkie. I was mad, but glad that I wasn’t about to get murdered in a goddamn wooden tower. I grabbed his walkie and shot back “Pissed me off is what you did you fucking asshole! I hope you’re happy!” “Hearing you scream like a little girl sure did make me happy alright!” “Yeah screw you too, that wasn’t even me, that was your stupid zombie chick, who was that, your wife?” “My what? Does the ghost look like a zombie from that far away? You said yourself it looked like Charlie- “Not the ghost dumbass, the woman on the stairs, she screamed and ran up them so that she could scare me into the tower. Hell she must be like an Olympic runner, did you get Usain Bol-“ “Dean, I didn’t put no woman on the stairs.” Upon hearing that he would have the night shift for the next couple of weeks until they found a replacement, my friend quit and vowed never to return to that park. To this day he swears that either Donny never told him about that part being a prank, or that he saw something entirely unrelated. I’ve began to question my own participation in the night shifts, and consider myself lucky that the few times I’ve been on it I had been stationed at the north and eastern sectors. Category:CreepyPasta Article